It's been a long week ...
Sunday, March 23rd, 2003 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthI haven't been on LJ much, so may have missed all sorts of vital posts. Personal baggage to sort, a hectic week to take my mind off the Random Cloud o'Doom (which dissapated as randomly as it had arrived, thanks), and more exciting communications with Plymouth Social Services, in several of their many guises.
About time too. Tor are perhaps the leading US publisher of SF and fantasy. Now they've launched a UK branch, and 300 or so people -- some of them famous -- packed into the function suite at the ICA for the launch party. Actually, it's possible that quite a lot of them were famous: I spent a fair amount of time sidling up to people I did recognise and asking them to identify people I didn't recognise. Conventions, with name badges, are so much easier.
Did manage to spot Tanith Lee, Dave Garnett,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brisingamen, China Mieville, marypcb, sbisson, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Cherith Baldry, Liz Williams, Justina Robson, lproven (who was present in return for getting my CD Rom drive working again), gummitch, Colin Greenland, Dave Langford, Greg Keyes, and all manner of other people, many without LiveJournals. Yet.
We sat on the balcony observing the almost-full moon over the London Eye, and talked about the imminent war and this being the last night of peace. And when I got back to Charing Cross, the headline on the newspapers was 'War Has Begun'.
Thursday night I met up withladymoonray and zoo_music_girl in a West End pub and we had a cheery, convivial evening. Then we went to the Astoria where there were far too many other people (certainly way too many to go downstairs) and where the sound, or possibly the ambience, was appalling.
I've stood upstairs for gigs before -- Garbage, for instance -- and enjoyed the music, but the Throwing Muses' songs seemed to blur into one. Certainly not the distinctive sound that I associate with them. I've been a fan of theirs since the late 1980s, but I could only recognise two of the songs. It felt rather flat, and not all of that was down to my state of mind -- which had been pretty much cheered-up before we got to the Astoria.
Disappointing, especially as this was the first time I'd actually made it to one of their gigs -- but will give 'em the benefit of the doubt, at another venue, if they play again.
Actually, I spent much of Friday dealing with The Hammersmith Client, a major company whose IT department have never yet supplied me with a working, networked PC containing the necessary version of Access ...
Dead and Buried is the 3rd-Friday-of-the-month Goth night, at Gossips (a club so cellarish that even I find the ceiling too low). A very jolly evening was had in the company of the usual suspects -ladymoonray, lproven, kjersti, flickgc, sneerpout, zoo_music_girl, the ever-elusive green_amber (who moved in mysterious ways), and miscellaneous Friends who I cannot be bothered to enumerate here. The music was less doomy/shoegazy than I expected, and the dance floor was empty enough for me to elbow my way onto it. Also, ladymoonray got her bounce back, at least briefly, and we didn't leave until, er, stupid a.m.
Declined to get up extra-early and joinbrisingamen, gummitch and others on the SF/Acnestis slouch. Got up rather later (bemoaning previous night's decision to bounce around quite so much to ancient punk classics) and slouched in the sunshine, half-deafened by happy chirpy protestors and helicopters dancing overhead. Fewer people than last time (which I missed) but it was still uncomfortably crowded at some points -- the bottom of Trafalgar Square especially so.
Like so many other marchers, we found the lure of Green Park's green bits (plus daffodils and sunshine) irresistable. First ice-creams of the year! I do wonder if erecting a deck-chair is a lost art, though: the attendant certainly didn't have a clue, and no one else seemed to be much good at it. We sat on the grass and sniggered.
There is something about this war which I find deeply unnerving. I cannot think about it for long. And then I feel guilty for being an ostrich. Two headlines, juxtaposed: 'Blair says war going according to plan' and 'ITN Reporter killed by friendly fire'.
This sand is my friend. I shall stick my head in it some more.
Today, in glorious spring sunshine, I sat in Greenwich Park and finished reading Wolfskin, by Juliet Marillier, who I am interviewing on Tuesday. 'A bright new star in historical fantasy,' it says here. Although that's a genre I've .. well, outgrown, I think ... this is an enjoyable read, and -- despite some flaws -- it's an impressive novel. The hero is a Viking berserker: the heroine is a Pictish princess: the setting is the Orkneys: the magic is wonderfully unobtrusive, and the historical setting is broadly accurate, given a dateline of Early Medieval / 'Dark Ages'.
This life thing is okay, I guess, though still a bit buggy. But am wary of applying updates, as often this causes things to stop working ...
About time too. Tor are perhaps the leading US publisher of SF and fantasy. Now they've launched a UK branch, and 300 or so people -- some of them famous -- packed into the function suite at the ICA for the launch party. Actually, it's possible that quite a lot of them were famous: I spent a fair amount of time sidling up to people I did recognise and asking them to identify people I didn't recognise. Conventions, with name badges, are so much easier.
Did manage to spot Tanith Lee, Dave Garnett,
brisingamen, China Mieville, marypcb, sbisson, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Cherith Baldry, Liz Williams, Justina Robson, lproven (who was present in return for getting my CD Rom drive working again), gummitch, Colin Greenland, Dave Langford, Greg Keyes, and all manner of other people, many without LiveJournals. Yet.We sat on the balcony observing the almost-full moon over the London Eye, and talked about the imminent war and this being the last night of peace. And when I got back to Charing Cross, the headline on the newspapers was 'War Has Begun'.
Thursday night I met up with
ladymoonray and zoo_music_girl in a West End pub and we had a cheery, convivial evening. Then we went to the Astoria where there were far too many other people (certainly way too many to go downstairs) and where the sound, or possibly the ambience, was appalling. I've stood upstairs for gigs before -- Garbage, for instance -- and enjoyed the music, but the Throwing Muses' songs seemed to blur into one. Certainly not the distinctive sound that I associate with them. I've been a fan of theirs since the late 1980s, but I could only recognise two of the songs. It felt rather flat, and not all of that was down to my state of mind -- which had been pretty much cheered-up before we got to the Astoria.
Disappointing, especially as this was the first time I'd actually made it to one of their gigs -- but will give 'em the benefit of the doubt, at another venue, if they play again.
Actually, I spent much of Friday dealing with The Hammersmith Client, a major company whose IT department have never yet supplied me with a working, networked PC containing the necessary version of Access ...
Dead and Buried is the 3rd-Friday-of-the-month Goth night, at Gossips (a club so cellarish that even I find the ceiling too low). A very jolly evening was had in the company of the usual suspects -
ladymoonray, lproven, kjersti, flickgc, sneerpout, zoo_music_girl, the ever-elusive green_amber (who moved in mysterious ways), and miscellaneous Friends who I cannot be bothered to enumerate here. The music was less doomy/shoegazy than I expected, and the dance floor was empty enough for me to elbow my way onto it. Also, ladymoonray got her bounce back, at least briefly, and we didn't leave until, er, stupid a.m.Declined to get up extra-early and join
brisingamen, gummitch and others on the SF/Acnestis slouch. Got up rather later (bemoaning previous night's decision to bounce around quite so much to ancient punk classics) and slouched in the sunshine, half-deafened by happy chirpy protestors and helicopters dancing overhead. Fewer people than last time (which I missed) but it was still uncomfortably crowded at some points -- the bottom of Trafalgar Square especially so.Like so many other marchers, we found the lure of Green Park's green bits (plus daffodils and sunshine) irresistable. First ice-creams of the year! I do wonder if erecting a deck-chair is a lost art, though: the attendant certainly didn't have a clue, and no one else seemed to be much good at it. We sat on the grass and sniggered.
There is something about this war which I find deeply unnerving. I cannot think about it for long. And then I feel guilty for being an ostrich. Two headlines, juxtaposed: 'Blair says war going according to plan' and 'ITN Reporter killed by friendly fire'.
This sand is my friend. I shall stick my head in it some more.
Today, in glorious spring sunshine, I sat in Greenwich Park and finished reading Wolfskin, by Juliet Marillier, who I am interviewing on Tuesday. 'A bright new star in historical fantasy,' it says here. Although that's a genre I've .. well, outgrown, I think ... this is an enjoyable read, and -- despite some flaws -- it's an impressive novel. The hero is a Viking berserker: the heroine is a Pictish princess: the setting is the Orkneys: the magic is wonderfully unobtrusive, and the historical setting is broadly accurate, given a dateline of Early Medieval / 'Dark Ages'.
This life thing is okay, I guess, though still a bit buggy. But am wary of applying updates, as often this causes things to stop working ...
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no subject
Date: Sunday, March 23rd, 2003 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, March 23rd, 2003 09:12 pm (UTC)And thanks for the word "shoegazy". I hadn't heard it before but I think I know exactly what it must mean.
Harumph!
Date: Monday, March 24th, 2003 03:18 am (UTC)oops!
Date: Monday, March 24th, 2003 03:27 am (UTC)